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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

06 Michigan team a top "BCS bridesmaid"

I know that we all feel we got jobbed out of a MNC game bid by Urban Meyer in 2006 but its nice to see a national media memeber acknowledge it:

6. 2006 - Michigan
Regular season: 11-1

Because Ohio State lost -- and lost big, 41-14 -- it's easy to forget now that most fans didn't even want Florida to be in the game. They wanted Michigan, which spent the final six weeks of the regular season ranked behind Ohio State in the AP Poll. The Wolverines' lone loss was a 42-39 classic in Columbus, Ohio, a game so good that the following week the pollsters kept Michigan at No. 2, as did the BCS. But when one-loss Florida defeated Arkansas in the SEC title game, the Gators leaped into the second slot and into the BCS title game. Michigan settled for the Rose Bowl, where they were romped by one-loss USC, whom Florida also leapfrogged.

Top 6 teams as BCS bridesmaids... its behind a paywall but you can probably guess who is number 1. I'll give you a hint they were ranked number 1 and took out their frustration on us.

Yeah, my friend still has his UCLA hat (and he wears it everyday still) that he bought specifically to root against USC. But then after that happened, Florida beat Arkansas and Gary Danielson got the Gators in the national title game. Bastard.

At some point during the SEC Championship Game, Danielson had a graphic with both Florida and UM schedules up. He stated that every single one of Florida's victories was better than UM's. This included beating an Arkansas team that ran a base offense that didn't include a quarterback. I still can't watch a game that he announces without being filled with uncontrolled rage.

2006 was an awesome team and I'm pretty confident we would've whipped both OSU or Florida in the BCS title game. But sorry...any claim we had about deserving a rematch went out the door when we got clocked by USC in the Rose Bowl.

wrong on both accounts, sir. first of all, to say we would've whipped OSU in a rematch is crazy because they beat us in the regular season. I think we could have or would have beat them but it probably would've been a really close epic game again- the most epic game ever in the rivalry which would've been so awesome.

secondly, the argument isn't about what happened in the rose bowl. the argument is that our only loss came from the #1 team in the country and it was by 3 points. florida lost to auburn our whoever but they certainly were not ranked #1. and on top of it- we were punished by not having a "championship game" and having our season end before the SEC's which is why we were leap-frogged; no fault of michigans.

i still to this day have not watched a replay of that game and shaun crable still gives me the chills. i still haven't recovered. that game is easily the most disappointed feeling i've experienced from sports in my life. 2nd place goes to the red wings 2009 game 7 stanley cup game......

I agree with this. The Rose Bowl was a consolation prize. Our players believed that they were going to play for a national championship. All Big Ten tradition aside, the Rose Bowl must've been a huge let down to them after getting the media whipping that Lloyd silently let us take. We were screwed. And that led to The Horror and the last 3 seasons.

I agree. It's hard to judge. It seems most years when a team falls significantly from the Title Game to another BCS bowl, or out completely they end up playing flat and losing. Besides M I remember it happening to Cal, Kansas State, and probably a few others.

No one can accurately project what might have been. College football has far too much variability and matchups matter. The OSU team played horribly, and maybe just matched up poorly with Florida. USC played lights out while M played flat - and maybe that was the worst matchup possible especially in a virtual home game for USC.

USC played the game of their lives and it was a very disappointed and deflated Michigan team. We were not the same team that played the first 12 games

The problem with this line of reasoning is that SC was in the same boat as us - in position to play for the national title until a close loss to its archrival in the season finale. There was no reason to believe that they'd be more motivated than us. The score was 3-3 at halftime. What is pretty clear is that SC's halftime adjustments worked a heck of a lot better than ours. Lloyd Carr never quite figured out that rock-rock-rock doesn't work so well when the other team has better players than you do.

But I don't think they were in the same boat. They LOST and dropped out of position to play in the National Title game. They had no expectations to be there. They were out to prove that they were a better team than than had showed (like they do in every bowl). We were an emotionally crushed team. Dropped in the rankings having not played, but been out campaigned, our 3rd Rose Bowl in 4 years, when we felt we should be playing the rematch in the greatest game of all time.

All's that happened was what happens every year Vince Young isn't going crazy on USC...they just showed talent-wise they should have been playing for the National Championship every year, if they didn't have idiotic slip-ups along the way. It's like the playoff mentality...will the best team always win? No. But who deserved to play for the championship at that time and place?

Correct me if im wrong but didnt our D average some ridiculous amount of yards per game going into OSU?? I want to say like 68 and then we just decided to let Beanie run all day. Man that game still pisses me off. That entire defense was almost drafted. Give them a good d-coordinator besides English and they would have been even better.

Well, there were a few relatively bare spots on that side of the ball. Trent was eventually drafted, but his '06 form wasn't much to celebrate. Other than the great Leon Hall, who did Michigan have back there? It was really exposed in the second half of the USC game.

I think Michigan and OSU could have played better in those bowl games, but it's not hard to think that the Big Ten was overrated that year. They went 2-5 in the postseason. Of course, having two teams in the BCS makes the pairings challenging.

Wow, just like how Jim Hermann went from coaching genius in 1997 to scapegoat after the 2005 season. Our D was great thanks to English's coaching. The entire staff was outcoached in the 2006 OSU game. Who knew Tressel was going to ditch conservative football and go spread offense on us? And Engilsh wasn't responsible for the late hit on Troy Smith in that game. It's just like how we surprised Florida in the Capitol One Bowl by spreading them out and opening up the playbook.

Never said Herman was good, but what did English do? He inherited a ridiculously talented defense and all he had to do was show up and they woudl be amazing. 07 comes around when alot of them are gone and what happens. Oh thats right The horror followed by Oregon. English was only a product of the players he had and you think u would realize that with how bad Eastern is now. Never said English was responsible for that hit either.

English put Michigan in a base nickel where the safeties would commonly blitz. It was devastating agaist the Spread, until Ohio State was able to match up to our cornerback talent, and their O-line could actually make some space before David Harris arrived with the boom-hammer. English's defense played to the strengths of all of the players on that team: Leon Hall one-on-one, Woodley as an edge rusher from hell, Crable as an attacking LB, Englemon and Adams as gap-filling and blitzing safeties, Harrison as a nickelback who played a lot like a Spur.

It's when he tried to do with Austin Panter and Johnny Sears what he could do with David Harris and Leon Hall that English's system fell apart.

That defense made a giant leap from 2005 to 2006. It goes beyond just showing up as you suggest. That was the problem previous teams had and tons of teams still go through that. They wouldn't put in as much work or effort during the week and it showed on game days. That defense did a great job in 2006 and were still above average in 2007 despite all the departures due to graduation that you seem to have forgotten.

And how can you even think of using English's head coaching work at Eastern? I'm talking about him as a D coordinator. Not all coordinators are head coach material. And no one has been able to turn EMU into a consistent winner in forever. That takes time and patience from the athletic department.

The last time Eastern was a consistent winner was when they had the person the stadium was named after and that was back in the 30's. There was my Freshman year where they went to a bowl game and then there was 1995 when they had a winning season, but two seasons out of how many do not make for winnning consistently. It's really sad because they manage to get some pretty good offenses but they never manage to get any good defenses to go with that.

And for all the woes right now, I think English may be turning the team in the right direction.

That season still burns me. There is no reason Florida should have been there, a rematch was warranted for the MNC. Michigan lost by 3 points on OSU home turf, that earns the right to play it out at a neutral site. Just hoping RR will punish them in 1 & 1/2 weeks.

I will never forget the last Saturday of the season. UCLA takes down USC and Arkansas is handling Florida, but that guy named Fish for Arkansas muffs a punt in the end zone and it's game over from there. Ugh.

Mardy Fish is the turkey who muffed the punt. I was a freshman 2006 and thought for sure we were going to the championship game. Even afterwards, I still had faith, but Urban Meyer started an intense campaign for Florida

USC didn't get jobbed, they lost to UCLA. We got jobbed because as I recall, we were still #2 AP and BCS, and we got jumped twice by USC and Florida. How can you call the BCS a system if we get jumped twice without playing a single down?

And I know we should've won in 2006. That Crable late hit on Troy Smith was the most devastating penalty that has incurred on any football team I have routed for.

2006 was such a special year...Michigan really crept up on everyone after not being picked to really contend for a championship that season even though we had a ton of talent. The Notre Dame game was incredible, really all of the games were incredible, I can remember every game, especially my 1st ever game in the Big House vs Northwestern. There were 40+ mph winds, the temp was in the low 30s, and the rain was pouring down...A great 17-3 victory nonetheless, and an experience that I will never forget!! Losing to OSU was incredibily frustrating. I drank excessively after the game and passed out...then the dagger was twisted even more a couple weeks later by picking Florida over us...oh well, we have a LOT to look forward to with this group of kids!! GO BLUE...HARD EDGE THIS WEEK!!

"And to think a guy by the name of Louis Elbel would write The Victors on a train coming back from Chicago in 1898...It's amazing!!" -Jim Brandstatter

Those last few weeks drove home how convoluted the bowl/BCS system really was. UM was leapt by Florida simply because Meyer politicked for them and they played in the SEC title game, then every team had to sit for at least a month before they played again. I still believe that at the end of the season, UM and OSU were the two best teams in the country. Then, in an exhibition game 30+ days later, Florida and USC beat those teams on nuetral fields. The fact that over a month passed between when OSU and UM played and when they saw the field again drove home how dumb the BCS and bowl systems really are.

That wasn't the year that did for me and the BCS. The year did it for me was the year that USC got jobbed and had to play in the Rose Bowl and ended up getting AP Championship. That was the year that made me think about what brought about the BCS in the first place...namely Michigan getting jobbed in the Coaches Bowl for Nebraska. Something tells me that was the straw that made the Big 10 and Pac 10 say, "Fine, we'll join your little club". In the 13 years of the BCS, I think there have only been a couple matchups where it truly felt like #1 was playing #2. And I have a feeling somehow the computers will figure out that 1 loss teams will be better than no loss teams.

I think the Big Ten was starting to move in that direction before 2006. I mean they have been trying to court Notre Dame for a while now and Notre Dame has been saying, "What part of we have NBC paying us don't you understand?". 2006 may have been the straw that broke the camel's back though.

I think the bigger reason that the Big 10 wanted to move towards a playoff is the number of times you hear, "Yeah, Iowa (or Wisconsin or MIchigan or Ohio State or Penn State) is good but they don't play Iowa (or Wisconsion or MIchigan or Ohio STate or Penn State). I mean every year since the addtion of Penn State there has always been two conference teams that aren't played. Sometimes those teams aren't a factor but sometimes they are.

The current era of Michigan football and our becoming a rebuilding project really kind of got under way with the passing of Bo that day. After Bo passed, it seemd that our earthly protection and magical 2006 season turned to dust from the now loosened Angry Michigan Hating Satan!

Since then, we endured back to back losses to OSU and USC, and then opened 2007 with the Horror (against the team that Shall Not be Named) and the Oregon slaughter and back to back losses to Wisky and OSU with Henne hurt. Thus departed Lloyd (after a brief resurgence in the Capital One bowl) and then came the rebuilding of the offense and the decimated defense and 3-9 and 5-7. Maybe we will look back and see the 2010 Illinois 3 OT win as the turning point and the end of this period.....Hope springs eternal!

Bo's passing really changed everything, and marked the beginning of the end of his era of football (Lloyd Carr definitely carved out his own legacy as a coach, especially with '97, but in a way he'll always be a Bo man).

With that being said, it hasn't all been horrors-- you gloss over it, but the Capital One Bowl was truly a thing of beauty, and while it in no way shape or form resembled typical Bo/Lloyd offenses, we vanquished the "spread demon" that had bedeviled Carr for so long, and sent him out with a win against the most highly decorated spread-guru coach and spread QB in the country.

If you think you guys had a rough end to 2006/start of 2007 try being us lol. We still haven't lived that shit down. One bad game and suddenly the nation thinks that an entire section of the country can't play football because they are "slow". Asinine.